B.S. about testosterone on House

[dalebert]

Who has seen season 8, episode 13 of House? What are your thoughts? Below are mine.

SPOILER ALERT

It's about this guy who used to be an extremely competitive and cutthroat businessman. Now he's a radical feminist speaker and writer. Turns out he's got low testosterone due to an injury sometime back and they correct it with injections. Almost immediately he starts to revert back to his old personality.

This bugged the crap out of me. It acts like hormones are some magic potion that dramatically shape our personalities. I know they shape our bodies in many ways and can affect sex drives and even affect our emotions and such. That said, I feel like this exaggerated view of the innate differences been men and women (presumably largely due to male and female hormones) is incredibly biased and is used as a justification for traditional roles for men and women.

I think the evidence is sketchy at best and studies seem very biased as well, but I am very much inclined to believe that most of the differences between men and women are based on expectations and conditioned into us from an early age.

[dalebert]

I also talked about this House episode on my podcast. If you don't want to hear the whole thing, we started talking about this at about 1 hour and 34 minutes in.

http://flamingfreedom.com/2012/03/11/episode-2012-march-10th/

[Sephirah]

Unfortunately, a lot of people may well believe it though. There are those who don't bother to research things and assume that the makers of TV programmes have done all the legwork beforehand and know what they're talking about, especially in medical dramas, so will take most of what's shown at face value and not question it.

Be careful or next you will believe that police CSI departments have computers that can tell officers where you are eating out tonight based on a smudged fingerprint photographed from 10 feet away by a mobile phone.

If they were anything like my local police, they'd still be struggling to figure out which end of the phone to talk into.

[lilacwoman]

I just watched an episode of Everbody loves Raymond and both raymond and his dad are lazy guys who don't lift a finger round the house and the wives are long suffering slaves who know perfectly well that their guys are helpless suppliers of sperm and money...lovely program.

[Joelene9]

  I just seen that episode of House.  A lot of emasculation innuendo.  The effects of the T or E for that matter are not that immediately apparent.  I had too much T as an adult that my muscles in my frame did not develop like those you see in a gym.  I had low self esteem, and the high libido that it was quite bothersome. 
  I read an article in the local paper about the real CSI.  They would like to have those flashy and glassy equipment that is seen on those shows.  But those things are only for flash and they are not really functional.  The evidence processing still does take time, sometimes months on a DNA sample.  The real CSI has to go through a lot of hoops to get the evidence to trial that is not seen on those shows.  Remember the O.J. Simpson trial?  He got acquitted due partially to the sloppy handling of the DNA evidence. 
  Joelene

[dalebert]

My co-host said exactly that--that it's just entertainment and not factual. I realize. It just bugs me that this is part of the general consciousness and it's very sexist and many people do look at it as scientific.

[tekla]

take most of what's shown at face value and not question it

You can't do much about idiots.

[Devlyn]

Dalebert, I wish I were part of this general consciousness. I don't have a TV, I've never seen House, as far as I know Gilligan and the other castaways are still awaiting rescue! Hugs, Devlyn

[Arch]

Yeah, I just loved this episode of House. Seems like a situation in which the scriptwriters trumped the medical consultant.

Instead of getting cranky and depressed and losing motivation, the guy basically becomes a woman when his T is low.

And instead of deciding to play around with his T dose and find a happy medium, the doctors present the patient with a false dilemma: you can have low T and be completely emasculated and subject to all sorts of health risks but be successful in your career and happy in your marriage, or you can revert to being a knuckle-dragging caveman and lose both your business and your wife.

[tekla]

It's Hollywood, nothing gets in the way of the story.  Hell, these are the people who read the Bible and said: "Not bad, but Jesus needs a love interest."

[Jamie D]

I recall a House episode that featured a patient with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.
How many storylines have you seen like that before?

[justmeinoz]

It has credibility and that is downright scary!

The Pathology Lab where I worked once had a request from a Dr for a test for Rhubarb Toxin. 

When the scientist on duty asked what on earth for, he got the reply that they thought it might be worth looking for as, "it was on House last night!" 

Goddess help the patient, was the thought that passed through our minds.

Karen.

[dalebert]

How many storylines have you seen like that before?

I don't recall at the moment. I'm thinking that it's not exactly unusual for House to be sexist, but I don't necessarily expect the writers to be.

[tekla]

I'm thinking that it's not exactly unusual for House to be sexist, but I don't necessarily expect the writers to be.

You do realize that House is not real.  He's a character played by an actor.  EVERYTHING he says is written by writers.

[dalebert]

You do realize that House is not real.  He's a character played by an actor.  EVERYTHING he says is written by writers.

You don't think non-racist/sexist/etc. writers ever write characters who are racist, sexist, etc.? Just because he says it doesn't mean that's the POV of the writers.

[tekla]

TV writers are not bloggers, they don't get to choose what they write, they get told what to write - and rewrite.  It's all up to the directors to some degree, and the producers to larger degree.

[dalebert]

You're splitting hairs. My point remains. Whoever it is who is driving the plots, characters, POVs--it can be directors and producers. House is a show that talks about human nature and interpersonal relationships. It expresses certain POVs. I was just disturbed by what they seemed to be expressing about maleness and personalities being so chemical.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that our body chemistry is an integral part of what drives us, but that was just  to the point of supporting notions that we've been indoctrinated to believe in order to justify a bunch of sexist bull->-bleeped-<-.

[Jamie D]

I don't recall at the moment. I'm thinking that it's not exactly unusual for House to be sexist, but I don't necessarily expect the writers to be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_Deep_%28House%29